The takeaway

To have a healthy infrastructure, you need reliable configuration
data in the CMDB. You can maintain reliability of data by managing
duplicate CIs and through accurate infrastructure mapping.

Identify duplicate CI records and resolve them with your CMDB

When you run ServiceNow Discovery, you might find duplicate CIs.
Discovery finds these CIs and adds them as a deduplication task for
you via the identification and reconciliation engine. You should work
with CI owners to resolve them. For example, one Discovery customer
runs a background script that automatically identifies the duplicate
CIs and escalates them to the CMDB owner. Since they have automated
the escalation process, they don’t have to go through each CI
manually. All this data is tracked via the CMDB dashboard.

MID Server

Each MID Server is a lightweight Java process that can run on a
Linux, Unix, or Windows server. During discovery, the MID
Server executes probes and patterns and returns the results back to
the instance for processing. It doesn’t retain any information.

Heads up!

Watch the number of duplicate records showing up in the CMDB.

When the CMD is manually seeded and the infrastructure targets
aren’t managed by Discovery, then the CMDB identification and
reconciliation process will be unable to reconcile the data from
different sources. We recommend that you match all the CI classes
being imported with those found with Discovery when you reconcile
them. Be sure to review the Discovery identifiers to ensure a match
between discovered and imported CI records. That way, Discovery won’t
return duplicate CIs.

When the Now Platform CMDB is replacing an incumbent CMDB, then the
best approach is to upload your legacy CMDB into a user‑defined table,
and create on‑demand scheduled jobs to reconcile what Discovery finds
against the legacy CMDB data. This establishes the new CMDB as the
source of truth.

Use the Discovery CI schedule manager to access all discovered
devices, errors that might occur during discovery, and unidentified IP
addresses. The CI schedule manager provides a summary of discoveries
triggered from configuration item schedules.

MID Server

Each MID Server is a lightweight Java process that can run on a
Linux, Unix, or Windows server. During discovery, the MID
Server executes probes and patterns and returns the results back to
the instance for processing. It doesn’t retain any information.

MID Server

Each MID Server is a lightweight Java process that can run on a
Linux, Unix, or Windows server. During discovery, the MID
Server executes probes and patterns and returns the results back to
the instance for processing. It doesn’t retain any information.

Discovery is horizontal data mapping, which means that you find
details of each device along with applications and software running on
them. We recommend that you enable enhanced application dependency
mapping (ADM) to get regular samples of the network traffic to
identify applications running on devices. This will let you find newly
added applications on servers.

MID Server

Each MID Server is a lightweight Java process that can run on a
Linux, Unix, or Windows server. During discovery, the MID
Server executes probes and patterns and returns the results back to
the instance for processing. It doesn’t retain any information.

Figure 8: Discovery is a horizontal process that finds all the
infrastructure dependencies OOTB

MID Server

Each MID Server is a lightweight Java process that can run on a
Linux, Unix, or Windows server. During discovery, the MID
Server executes probes and patterns and returns the results back to
the instance for processing. It doesn’t retain any information.

Beyond horizontal discovery, service mapping gives you an additional
layer of insights via a top‑down discovery approach that also uses
ADM. Discovery customers use this approach to find all the
relationships and dependencies of applications tied to critical
business services. We’ve found that customers have even better
visibility of their infrastructure and a much healthier CMDB with
service mapping.

MID Server

Each MID Server is a lightweight Java process that can run on a
Linux, Unix, or Windows server. During discovery, the MID
Server executes probes and patterns and returns the results back to
the instance for processing. It doesn’t retain any information.

Figure 9: Service mapping gives you infrastructure and service dependencies

MID Server

Each MID Server is a lightweight Java process that can run on a
Linux, Unix, or Windows server. During discovery, the MID
Server executes probes and patterns and returns the results back to
the instance for processing. It doesn’t retain any information.

A service map builds relationships among infrastructure components,
tying critical services to devices and applications.

MID Server

Each MID Server is a lightweight Java process that can run on a
Linux, Unix, or Windows server. During discovery, the MID
Server executes probes and patterns and returns the results back to
the instance for processing. It doesn’t retain any information.

“Before, if we needed ad hoc enterprise configuration
information, it would take more than a day to get reliable
information. Now, that same type of query takes minutes.” – Oak Ridge National Laboratories

MID Server

Each MID Server is a lightweight Java process that can run on a
Linux, Unix, or Windows server. During discovery, the MID
Server executes probes and patterns and returns the results back to
the instance for processing. It doesn’t retain any information.

EXPERT TIP

Complete horizontal discovery of your network before top‑down
relationship mapping. When you complete the horizontal discovery of
your network first, it will give you confidence that you have complete
visibility into devices, systems, and applications before you map services.